dating an abusive manchild: true stories

I am in a much bet­ter re­la­tion­ship now, but I need to share my ex­pe­ri­ence for cathar­sis, and for peo­ple to know that mon­sters hide in plain sight.
 

true sto­ry #1
We just start­ed liv­ing to­geth­er, and he was still keep­ing our re­la­tion­ship a se­cret. One day, he de­clares that he will be dog-sit­ting for his ex-girl­friend for a few days. De­spite also pay­ing rent and be­ing his cur­rent part­ner, he didn’t ask for my opinion. 

I asked if I could meet his ex-girl­friend, as it would only be prop­er since I will also be in­ter­act­ing with her dog. Be­sides, I have an im­pres­sive his­to­ry of be­ing good friends with my boyfriends’ exes. 

He got ir­ra­tional­ly an­gry, and threat­ened to break up with me be­cause I was be­ing im­ma­ture … for ask­ing to meet the own­er of the dog that will be stay­ing in the apart­ment with us. He called me un­sta­ble, he called his ex-girl­friend un­sta­ble, and said he didn’t want ei­ther of us to meet.

Two years lat­er, that ex-girl­friend and I are friends. And I find out from her that she nev­er knew I even ex­ist­ed while he was dogsit­ting for her. No won­der he in­sist­ed on meet­ing up with her out­side the apart­ment complex.

true sto­ry #2
He forced me to wear his ex-girlfriend’s Hal­loween cos­tume from maybe (pos­si­bly) 5 years ago. He kept it in a box la­beled Hal­loween in his garage, and un­earthed it every October. 

I want­ed to wear a Hal­loween cos­tume for work, but wasn’t that des­per­ate. He in­sist­ed that I wear the cos­tume, and I re­fused be­cause it was weird how much he kept push­ing it on me. Be­sides, I was too big and didn’t fit in it. He got pissed that I didn’t want to wear his ex-girlfriend’s cos­tume, and be­cause I didn’t want to be threat­ened with home­less­ness for the hun­dredth time, I squeezed into it. The de­mon cos­tume he wore nev­er fit him more perfectly.

true sto­ry #3
He forced me to do cart­wheels with him in the small apart­ment af­ter we had been drink­ing. I didn’t want to do it, most­ly be­cause I didn’t want to crash into fur­ni­ture and be­cause I am not a gym­nast. I kept say­ing no, but he wouldn’t let up. 

I start­ed to cry due to the pres­sure, be­cause he was­n’t re­spect­ing my protests, and be­cause he was get­ting frus­trat­ed that I didn’t want to do cart­wheels. He was fram­ing the whole thing as him try­ing to get me to be more con­fi­dent, be­cause he “likes to date con­fi­dent women.” But there was noth­ing con­fi­dent about be­ing forced to do cart­wheels in a small space while intoxicated. 

I was scared, tired, and an­gry. But I did it any­way, so he would stop neg­ging me. In the end, he gave me a hug, and it felt like a boa con­stric­tor squeez­ing the dig­ni­ty out of me.

true sto­ry #4
I al­ready had con­crete proof he was cheat­ing. I saw the Face­book chats and the text mes­sages. One of his birth­day presents was a list of all my so­cial me­dia lo­gin and pass­words, along with a let­ter that stat­ed I want­ed him to know he has ac­cess to my phone and all my ac­counts, be­cause he can trust me and I have noth­ing to hide. 

It was a point­ed let­ter, and I hoped to hit a nerve in him. He got shifty and said he was ‘of­fend­ed,’ be­cause this wasn’t the kind of re­la­tion­ship he want­ed where we didn’t trust each oth­er. But I just gave him my pass­words … ? He kept his phone next to him at all times. I changed my pass­words soon af­ter. I stopped trust­ing him.

true sto­ry #5
He got mad when I asked why he had an un­used Clone A Willy that was miss­ing the vi­bra­tor component. 

His re­sponse to my ques­tion was to scream loud enough for the neigh­bor­hood to hear “I want­ed to DP by girl­friend with­out bring­ing an­oth­er guy in!!!”

Of­ten he’d piss him­self off just from an in­no­cent com­ment or ques­tion. Boy, calm your fuck­ing boobs. Maybe I should’ve tweet­ed @Ms.Foxy_420 and find out if he gift­ed her the vibrator.

true sto­ry #6
He once asked me what my fa­vorite sit­com was, and I said it was Friends, fol­lowed close­ly by The Of­fice and Parks and Recre­ation. Ap­par­ent­ly there was a right an­swer to his ques­tion be­cause he start­ed in­sult­ing me when my top pick wasn’t Seinfeld. 

He also talked shit about his close friend who also likes Friends, and said that lik­ing Friends ‘must be a stu­pid Fil­ipino thing.’ 

I didn’t know that lik­ing a spe­cif­ic pop­u­lar sit­com could get me in­sult­ed. I guess all 9 sea­sons of Se­in­feld had one ef­fect on his per­son­al­i­ty: He was as much of an ass­hole as George Costanza.

true sto­ry #7
We were watch­ing the sea­son fi­nale of Game of Thrones. He made a com­ment about So­phie Turn­er (some­thing about her not know­ing her name or some oth­er), and I said that’s weird be­cause I know for a fact he fol­lows her on In­sta­gram and likes her photos. 

He IM­ME­DI­ATE­LY blew up, ac­cused me of spy­ing on him, and prompt­ly blocked me on In­sta­gram. I didn’t even get a chance to tell him that In­sta­gram shows you a feed of what your friends like, so I nev­er had to “spy.” He likes pic­tures of women in biki­nis and sexy out­fits, and it pops up on my feed. It also shows him lik­ing all of the posts of the woman he had been sex­ting, but that’s to be expected.

When we broke up, he blocked me on every­thing. But he kept in touch with all the num­ber of women he had been cheat­ing on me and his exes with on In­sta­gram, Face­book, and Twit­ter. I know all their names.

true sto­ry #8
And he’s got the gross­est side­pieces too. Like that Cal­Fit gym rat he promised a self­ie to, to that dis­gust­ing “but I was drunk and my grand­pa is dy­ing” wannabe ac­tress in Nashville. He was soOo at­tract­ed to her pig­tails and nudes. 

Goes to show you can be over 30 and still act like a child.
 

I do feel
much hap­pi­er and lighter now that I can share my sto­ry with­out fear of re­tal­i­a­tion or be­ing threat­ened. It sucked let­ting my abuser have so much pow­er be­cause I still de­pend­ed on him. He messed with the wrong woman.
 
 

—saman­tha costanilla

Flom­mist Saman­tha Costanil­la is a jack-of-all-trades/­mas­ter-of-none who dab­bles in var­i­ous hob­bies such as fiber crafts, po­et­ry, tarot read­ing, learn­ing new lan­guages, and judg­ing sketchy ty­pog­ra­phy in restau­rant menus. She also sur­vived The Snap. Copy­right © 2018 Saman­tha Costanilla.

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